Apple may face damages of $25.5 million in Korean suit

Earlier today we reported that Apple and Samsung were tangled in a legal battle in Australia where Cupertino had prevented the Korean company from releasing their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in that country. In an unrelated story, the tides have turned on Apple as they are facing damages of $25.5 million in a Korean class action lawsuit.

The suit, handed by the Miraelaw law firm, contests that Apple’s iPhone violated domestic laws on privacy. The complaint stems from accusations earlier this year that Apple had been tracking user’s locations in iOS 4 without consent.

Apple released a statement a few days later explaining that they were not tracking the location of devices but rather “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location” to help devices calculate their location when requested.

As of July 31, nearly 28,000 iPhone customers had signed up as plaintiffs in the class action suit. According to the Korean Herald, when the lawsuit was first announced, Korean iPhone users overloaded and crashed the server hosting the sign-up website.

If successful, the lawsuit would require Apple to shell out 27 billion won ($25.5 million), resulting in 1 million won ($949 based on today’s conversion rates) per plaintiff named in the suit. There are over 3 million iPhone users in the country according to the Korean Herald story. Currently, nearly 1 percent of Korean Apple mobile phone owners are participating in the lawsuit.

Miraelaw is planning to file the lawsuit against Apple Korea by the middle of August.